Guillen glad Sox are done with nightmare’ season

The White Sox’s 13-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers at U.S. Cellular Field on Sunday pretty much summed up everything that went wrong this year and led to the Sox’s miserable, disappointing season.

Nathaniel Whalen

Yeah, that seems about right.

The White Sox’s 13-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers at U.S. Cellular Field on Sunday pretty much summed up everything that went wrong this year and led to the Sox’s miserable, disappointing season.

Opening Day starter Jose Contreras got hit hard, the offense didn’t really show up, and the bullpen imploded. It was a microcosm of the entire season wrapped neatly into one final nine-inning package.

“Thank God we’re done with this nightmare,” manager Ozzie Guillen said after the final out was recorded as the Sox closed at 72-90. “It was a bad dream. Hopefully, when I wake up, something good happens. It was a tough season. I just told one of the coaches we finished up the season the way we started -- really bad.”

Now comes the hard part: figuring out what went wrong and what they have to fix for the 2008 season.

“This year, very shabby,” general manager Ken Williams said. “And again, we’re somewhat at a loss as to how things transpired and how we never got clicking at any time in the season ...

“I prefer just to say there were some things, particularly in regards to shaping our bullpen, that I wish I would have done differently. Obviously, it didn’t feel that way after the first month. It felt like during April we were on the right track, and then the wheels fell off for whatever reason, and then we got out of sync.

“More pressure put on the pitching staff as the result of our offensive problems. Once that got straightened out, then some of the pitching went by the wayside. It’s difficult to put our finger exactly on what has transpired. We never imagined coming out of spring training that offensively at the end of the year, we would talk about being ranked at or near the bottom in many categories.

“With the talent we have, that’s a little perplexing.”

The Sox ended up fourth in the American League Central, their lowest finish since they were seventh in the AL West in 1989.

“This year, you ask me why we lose, it would be hard for me to pick one thing and say, ‘We have to get better at this,’” Guillen said. “We have to get better in the bullpen, but offensively, we struggled. Defensively, we struggled. I think the starting rotation did a pretty good job, good enough to win more games. Our bullpen struggle? Yes. We don’t have too much run support to do that.”

Because the Sox couldn’t come up with answers as to what went wrong and believe it was more an aberration than anything, they re-signed a solid core -- Mark Buehrle, Jermaine Dye, Ozzie Guillen, A.J. Pierzynski -- for at least the next three years each.

With Jim Thome, Paul Konerko and Bobby Jenks all under contract for the next few years as well, the Sox believe they have the right group to start building around.

“It’s not a slide in talent ...” Williams said. “These guys are pretty good ballplayers that we’re going to bring back and go back to battle with.”

The Sox came full circle during their final battle Sunday, with Contreras taking the season’s final loss after getting the first. Contreras (10-17) tied for second among major league pitchers for most defeats this season.

The bullpen gave up seven runs in the seventh -- four charged to Mike Myers, three to Mike MacDougal -- to fittingly finish off the game and season.

“We failed all the way from the top to the bottom,” Guillen said. “We failed from (chairman) Jerry Reinsdorf all the way to the bat boy. Everyone failed this year.”